


Ouroboros

by moistdrippings



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Jealousy, M/M, Murder Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 03:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14886386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moistdrippings/pseuds/moistdrippings
Summary: Will is perturbed by Hannibal's interest in Clarice Starling, to his own chagrin, but his jealousy is an animal fed by scraps of distraction and enthusiasm.





	Ouroboros

**Author's Note:**

> I submitted this to the Stag Awards for Fannibal Fest 2017; it won in its category (Post-TWOTL Hannibal/Will) and, as part of my prize, Demore Barnes read part of it. It has taken me until now to recover enough to share it here.
> 
> At the time of this posting, the Stag Awards for Fannibal Fest 2018 (with the theme "We are Nakama") are open. Check it out at [the Fannibal Fest website](https://www.fannibalfest.com/stag-awards) and submit something!

It began with a disinterested hum.

Newspapers, television, and iPads were, per an unspoken rule, not allowed out when food was served. Meals were inherently sacred, whether the food between them had once cried out in fear or silently gave way to garden clippers. It was, however, not verboten, nor unusual, for Hannibal to be reading or browsing online while sipping coffee, waiting for Will to rise before he put the last stages of breakfast into motion.

That was how Will found him that morning, sat in one of his lush armchairs, mug at his side. He glanced up as Will entered, as he always did, and then returned his eyes to his tablet. "Good morning," he said, as he always did.

"Morning." Will stretched his arms over his head as he crossed to the window, muscles loose from his morning shower. The weather was fine; not far from their home, he could see ocean waves, small and gentle and clear, rolling over the shore. With a small, content sigh, he turned to look at Hannibal from the corner of his eyes. "I'm going out fishing today."

When he had first said that, just after they had settled into their home and were adjusting to fitting into each other's space again, Hannibal had tensed like he had wanted to protest. He hadn't, but it had taken Will returning from day-long fishing trips safely and early before that tiny sliver of worry had dissolved; sometimes Will could still see it there, just between his brows or at the edge of his lips. He knew most of it was not concern for his well-being or of being found out, but concern that Will might never return to him of his own volition. That, he knew, would be worse than if he were found out or injured at sea; maybe even worse than if he were killed.

He'd learned how to soothe those worries, though, and so he was prepared to do so then. At the very least, if Hannibal kept calm, he would invariably ask about his plans to return, and if he should plan ahead for dinner.

Instead, however, all Hannibal said was, "Hmm."

Will felt his eyebrows rise towards his hairline. Whatever Hannibal was reading had to be engrossing him, and if that was the case, it was either something so unbearably pretentious Will would be glad to get away and come back reeking of fish and salt water, or it was something he needed to be concerned about.

He waited until after breakfast — eggs and honeyed goat cheese with herbs, ripe fruit, and toast made from fresh bread — to find out. It wasn't hard; Hannibal didn't make such an effort to hide things from him as he might once have done, and so he didn't secure his tablet against invasions of privacy at all. All Will had to do was wait until Hannibal was doing the last of the cleaning up and turn the tablet on, bringing up what had last been viewed.

TattleCrime. Will frowned; that was rarely good news, but it was almost as likely Hannibal was narcissistically checking for mentions of himself as it was that there was any real, current information of note.

He almost missed it, at first, as he skimmed Freddie Lounds's latest articles. Some of her wells of information had dried up; the FBI kept a tighter lock against her since her part in the Dolarhyde plan, and without a current cannibal or serial killer terrorizing the good people of America, she had to resort to what amounted to gory fluff pieces: rehashing crimes of days past, conspiracy theories about what the authorities were hiding, and, in a move that occasionally amused Will, her ongoing search for the next savant detective to turn into a celebrity she could malign.

Or, perhaps, not malign. Will had barely looked at one such article on an up-and-coming FBI agent she had somehow scrounged up information on when he spotted it: the words "Graham and Lecter," followed by another mocking reference to the "Murder Husbands". He went back to the start of the article and read again.

It wasn't, at its heart, about them at all. There were only a passing mention; apparently one Clarice Starling had taken over what scraps remained of their still-open case for those — Jack and Alana, most likely — who refused to pronounce them dead. She was also working on more active cases, about which Freddie only had sparing details: young women going missing, a trio of headless coprses washing ashore on a New Jersey beach, and so on. Freddie, however, seemed almost as interested in Agent Starling as she was in the cases themselves; she wrote about her with an exaggerated pompousness, as though to deliberately put her new favorite agent on a pedestal.

Will checked the tablet's history. There were more stories about Ms. Starling, and it seemed Hannibal hadn't missed one; some appeared in his history twice, even. They went back far enough to be nothing more than a simple statement about Hannibal and himself not being considered dead, and had expanded over time into a sort of character study, with comparisons to himself showing up repeatedly. Apparently, as far as Freddie was concerned, she was Will Graham without all his fatal flaws; a stable, sane professional who understood psychopaths without succumbing to their personalities.

Will had long since stopped taking personal offense at anything Freddie Lounds said, and yet something gnawed at him there. He set it — the tablet and that unnameable feeling — aside, and without a word more to Hannibal, he set out to sea.

 

There was no difference — or, rather, no indifference — in how Hannibal greeted Will when he returned. He exuded his own special kind of warmth, making his genuine pleasure at Will's return obvious. He prepared farro verde with roasted vegetables, crisp olives, and tangy feta while Will grilled his catch, and as they ate Will let himself indulge in the sensory pleasures on his plate and in his cup. Across the table, too; Hannibal certainly endeavored to be as much a part of his art as he could without putting himself on the table.

When Will said that aloud, Hannibal looked inordinately pleased, and Will felt a separate, opposite gnawing in his gut. This time, he thought he'd be happy to be eaten by it whole.

The tablet and the first gnawing returned between dessert and bed. They often read quietly together, if Will wasn't tying flies and Hannibal wasn't composing or drawing. It was peaceful, almost serene, the way they sat like lions together, but something about the way Hannibal read that night caught Will's attention. Perhaps he was too eager, or too intensely involved, or maybe Will was just imagining it, but the ouroboros in his belly ate and ate at itself.

He tried to ignore it, focusing instead on his own book. He'd read the same paragraph three times when he gave up, setting it aside and looking at Hannibal with none of the casual air he wanted to have.

"Agent Clarice Starling," he said, clasping his hands together across his lap.

For his part, Hannibal didn't look particularly surprised. "She's taken up your mantle under the new man in Jack's seat. Apparently she's quite the prodigy."

Will felt a tug at the scar on his cheek as he grimaced, just a little. "They should learn to stop relying on prodigies, at least where you're concerned."

"Hmm," said Hannibal, and the beast in Will's stomach took a mighty bite from his flesh. Had Hannibal ever spoken so dismissively to him before? "You and I don't appear to be her primary concern at the moment, according to Freddie Lounds."

"Always a bastion of truth," Will said.

Hannibal gave a small nod, admitting his point. "Nonetheless, I have my own security measures. Nothing has happened to arouse my suspicion."

"No tugs on the line?" Will looked down at his hands. It was, perhaps, foolish to be preoccupied with who Hannibal was reading about; they did have more important matters to worry about, and if Hannibal was being especially thorough in monitoring a potential threat, he should be grateful. And yet... "We don't have to wait for her to catch our scent. We can assert ourselves as predators instead of prey."

That took Hannibal's eyes from his screen. He sat back slightly, a passively amused look on his face. "You would kill her first?"

"Yes." Will didn't have to think about it, and it almost startled him how quickly and earnestly he said it. He wasn't a casual killer — neither of them were, not now. Will wouldn't harm anyone who was simply rude, and Hannibal was cautious of attracting anyone's notice. All in all, in the three years since they had eaten Bedelia du Maurier, they had killed together only twice, and one was in self-defense after they had been recognized. Will suspected, but couldn't prove, that Hannibal had killed once on his own, but while he wasn't concerned enough to force the truth out, neither was he interested in doing the same. He had never once suggested a murder, either.

Until Clarice Starling.

"If we wait for them, we run the risk of being caught off-guard," Will said. "If we lure them in — or hunt them — we have the upper hand."

"And we spoil the idyllic Schrödinger's existence we enjoy." Hannibal leaned forward, setting his tablet aside and mirroring Will's position, though less tense. "Are you so willing to cut off the hydra's head you'd risk it growing another?"

Will's head swam. He understood Hannibal's point, and yet couldn't help but rebel against it. "Does it matter? Is it any better to live wondering if they know we're alive than to know they do, and to show them what that means?"

Hannibal didn't look as turned off by the idea as Will would have expected him to. He watched Will closely, waiting a moment before saying, "We would need to leave here. We have the comfort of this house, of relative anonymity now; we couldn't be sure we could secure that if the FBI was on alert again. They may find more of my assets if they know there's reason to keep digging."

"We'd still be together," Will said, like that changed things. And it did — for him, at least. He had once been at a point where he would have given up his life for peace, but the tides had turned completely; he wanted to run, if that was what it took to keep his life with Hannibal.

"Unless we're caught." Hannibal sat back slightly again, and Will realized with a wrenching feeling that, as far as Hannibal was concerned, the argument, if that was what it was, was over.

"I'm sure you could think of some way to call Agent Starling to slaughter without alerting the rest of her flock." Will leaned further forward, sliding his hands out in front of him, conspiratorial in their large, otherwise empty house. "You could cut her throat before anyone knew she was missing."

Amusement shone in Hannibal's eyes at that, and Will felt like he had wrestled his victory away — for a moment. "I imagine she'd be able to provide much more entertainment than a quick kill."

Will held back the snarl that threatened to tear its way out of him, just barely. "It doesn't have to be entertaining this time, Hannibal."

A smile curled the corners of Hannibal's mouth; he looked serene, like a god passively delighting in the antics of his mortal subjects. "Are you jealous of her, Will? Freddie Lounds is quite complimentary of her abilities."

Will badly wanted to say he wasn't, but before he could he choked on his words, realizing _he was_. It was like a shock of ice down his back, freezing time around them. That was the beast inside of him, or at least the head of it: his green-eyed ourorbos, twisting and chewing through the already Escher-like maze that made up his consideration of Hannibal.

He couldn't recall ever feeling jealous before — not of a specific person, not so intensely. For much of his life he'd felt a dull longing for the sense of belonging and normality that was within reach for most of humanity, but it never curdled into anger against any particular person. If it could be called anger, anyway; it felt larger, somehow, and more vicious. He could contain his anger. He wasn't sure he could contain this.

Worse yet, Hannibal knew. He had picked out its scent on Will before Will had recognized it himself; he was as good as gored for it. His only hope was to not deny it. "However I feel about her, she's a threat, not a toy. Don't get carried away."

Hannibal finally looked away, as unaffected as if the conversation had been about the weather, and picked his tablet back up. "She's not a threat to concern yourself with right now. Don't make her one by obsessing over her."

Will didn't know what to say to that. He was, he knew, thinking too much about her — someone whose existence he hadn't even known of before that morning. She didn't need to matter.

Wordlessly, he rose, shelving his book for the time being and collecting their wine glasses from earlier. As he crossed behind Hannibal's chair, he couldn't help but steal a glance over his shoulder.

He wasn't even looking at TattleCrime anymore.

Good, Will thought.

 

It took Will days to put Clarice Starling from his mind. He deliberately avoided asking or trying to figure out what Hannibal read on his iPad, involving himself in his day-to-day activities. When chances arose to be alone with Hannibal, he kept the conversation steered away from her and made it a point to enjoy their easy closeness.

It was simple enough to deny that what he had felt was real jealousy; it was an aberration instead, a flare of hot rage rising up simply because he hadn't had the same chances to feel it he used to in Hannibal's presence. He was better at not letting his empathy control him, at understand himself before he understood others, and that meant a greater overall control over his sense of self and his emotions, but there had to be slip-ups. He considered the possibility that he had picked up a string of jealousy from someone else, like chewed gum stuck to his shoe, without realizing it.

It wasn't how things usually worked, but it made more sense than feeling jealous of Hannibal's attentions. He lived with him; he had killed with him, had run from the law with him. He had his _love_ , even if they had never spoken of it. It wasn't rational to demand his focus even when he read TattleCrime.

So Will let it slip through him like the sands of an hourglass, settling deep inside where it wouldn't bother him anymore. He hadn't thought of Clarice Starling in three days when Hannibal brought her name up over dinner.

"You may have been right about Agent Starling," he said, apropos of nothing.

Will's head jerked up like a marionette's. "I'm not worried about her anymore," he said, putting his fork down.

"Perhaps we should be." Hannibal continued eating as he spoke, sparing only a glance for Will's fork. It was, Will assumed, rude to stop eating so abruptly. He'd never done it before; he wasn't sure. "She's quite adept at unraveling minds, not unlike yourself. If you were still pursuing me while I was here, I'd certainly worry."

Will bristled at the comparison, pressing his thumb into his palm. "You have me here, though. She doesn't have the chance to get into your head like I did."

Hannibal tilted his head, not quite disagreeing. "Even so, we have other loose ends in the United States still. We could pay Alana a visit, or Freddie Lounds. Even Jack. She would need only be a detour."

Will closed his eyes. There was always a thread of temptation to return; in truth, he wasn't sure he would hate any of what Hannibal was suggesting. He'd relish the chance to pay Freddie a visit, at least. Something seemed off about Hannibal's eagerness to encounter Agent Starling in person, though. "It's too risky."

"We've played with greater risks before," Hannibal said.

"With greater returns."

"What greater return is there than to severe all of the FBI's best ties to us?"

Will looked away from Hannibal's eyes. The beast in his belly had returned, wrapping around his esophagus and pulmonary artery. He tried to smother it before Hannibal could tame and leash it. "You were right. We're safer when we're an unknown variable."

"And yet being unknown means we are unaware of our own place on the chess board."

Will let out a long, low breath, and reopened his eyes. Hannibal still appeared as unaffected as ever. "Let her go, Hannibal. Please."

Hannibal spared him one more smug look. "Jealousy is unbecoming of you, Will."

With that, he stood, his plate cleared and his glass empty. Will realized his own plate was still half-full and growing cold, but he wasn't sure he had the appetite for it any longer.

"Besides," Hannibal said, his back to Will as he cleaned his dishes, "you have nothing to worry about. As you said, you're here, and she's not."

He was done with his cleaning before Will could bring himself to pick up his fork again. The rest of his meal was flavorless on his tongue; he couldn't help but wonder if he would need to worry if Clarice Starling was as close to Hannibal as he was.

 

The plan, as it was, had seemed simple, but Will would later recognize it only seemed simple to someone with a rapidly unspirialing sense of self. It was an unsettlingly familiar sensation.

He could hardly remember when he decided that he needed to put an end to Clarice Starling without Hannibal's input. It came to him like jigsaw pieces, each slotting in over time, parts and images coming together wherever they could wedge themselves in between two thoughts. It gathered in him like a storm, and he could not see it for the hurricane it was.

His first instinct had been to make use of Freddie Lounds, before he decided that her affection for Clarice Starling wasn't necessarily reciprocal. Starling was cooperative with her, that much was clear, but she was also steadfast and practical — things Will had struggled terribly with whenever he had encountered Freddie. No, he couldn't use her. Wouldn't, at least.

Anonymous tips were riskier, of course, and harder to track, but one email rerouted — with a little help — through encrypted servers and IPs brought eyes right to him. It was, then, only a matter of managing his misinformation and remaining vigilant.

Or so he thought.

"You always made your plans seem so simple," Will said, when Hannibal found him in their kitchen, soaked to the elbows in blood. It wasn't Clarice's. "People seemed so eager to do exactly what you needed them to, at least from the outside. How many contingencies plans would you make?"

Hannibal approached him slowly, stepping around the two dismembered bodies between them without even looking. "Will, what have you done?"

Will swallowed, leaning against the counter. He gripped the edge of it tight, his fingers slipping through still-wet blood. "They were supposed to send Agent Starling. I wanted you to have the chance to meet her."

Hannibal's eyes were wide — just a little, just enough for Will to see. His expression was, as yet, inscrutable. "To meet her?"

"Or to make meat out of her," Will admitted. He looked down at the bodies on the floor, and Hannibal finally turned to look directly at them as well. "She didn't come. I guess she's not that into you."

"Will." Hannibal was so much closer to him than Will had realized. He set his suit jacket down, just outside the worst blood splatters, and brought his hands up to Will's face. He studied him a moment, and Will realized he was checking his eyes, trying to gauge how present he was. He nearly laughed. "How do you feel?"

"Disappointed." Will did laugh then, just a little. "Stupid. They know where we are now, and I didn't even get to kill her."

"But you wanted to," Hannibal said. His voice was so soothing.

Will realized he was trembling, just a little. He nodded.

"For me," Hannibal clarified, not quite making it a question.

Will closed his eyes and nodded again. "Yes."

"Were you really so jealous?"

"You're _mine_ ," Will spat, more vehement than he'd planned to be. "If you think you can rip me apart and sew me back together and then do the same to someone else—"

Will experienced a moment of extreme disorientation. He felt turned upside down, but when the moment passed he realized he'd only moved a few inches, pulled into Hannibal's strong embrace. He clutches at Hannibal's shirt and took deep, wheezing breathes.

"You're mine," he murmured into Hannibal's shoulder, again and again.

Hannibal hummed, sweetly. It felt like a lullaby this time. "You're exceptional."

Will dug his fingers in tighter. His knuckles turned white. "You _love_ me."

Will felt Hannibal draw in a deep breath, smelling the hair at the back of his neck. "I do."

"We have to go," Will said, and it took everything he had left in him not to add '" _together_ ".

Hannibal held him tighter. "I love you. I haven't said it before, have I? I love you, Will."

Tears stung at Will's eyes, and he fought against Hannibal's hold — viciously at first, and then just enough to wriggle his torso away. Hannibal didn't even have time to look confused before Will brought their mouths together — harsh, embarrassingly inexpert, with teeth pressing into lips at awkward angles. He didn't care much. They'd never kissed before, and he had to correct that.

Hannibal kissed him back immediately, and cooperated as Will shifted and eased back, turning the kiss into something sweeter, something smoother. The snake in his stomach purred and squirmed, swallowing its tail happily.

They crossed the border together before the scene was discovered, and ate the hearts of the two agents while Clarice Starling was shown pictures of their carefully arranged bodies. They fell asleep entwined in one another, Will holding Hannibal's head to his chest, as they were once again pronounced definitively alive.


End file.
